Now a desert

I didn’t realize how close I was to the front line of climate change until I went in search of the campanar (bell tower) of Sant Romà de Sau.

It belongs to the oldest known standing submerged church in the world, and is normally visible just above the water line of the reservoir that surrounds it when full.

Photo taken July 2015 by Gregori Moreno

Early last spring, when searching for a few sights to visit with my sister and her family on their spring break in Barcelona, I marked the scenic Sant Romà de San reservoir on my map as a possibility. A few weeks earlier in the metro station where my son and I get the train to school every morning, I noticed a photo of the church ruins in a government ad campaign to reduce water waste. It showed the church uncovered, the water line below the base of the building, with the warning: “YOU CAN’T CONTROL THE RAIN, BUT YOU CAN CONTROL YOUR WATER USAGE. EACH DROP COUNTS.”

Founded in the year 917, The medieval town of Sant Romà de Sau is nestled in the Ter Valley about 100 kilometers northeast of Barcelona. Its Lombard Romanesque church, which was consecrated about 150 years later, served a town containing 10 houses and between 60 and 100 residents.

Under the Franco dictatorship, construction of the Ter River dam began in 1944 and was completed in 1965, nine hundred years after the church’s construction, forcing the evacuation of all residents and flooding the church, the town, and the entire valley. The reservoir became a source of potable water for the surrounding area and eventually a popular swimming and boating location.

The town of Sant Romà de Sau before it was flooded. Photo credit: Archivo Manel Gausa

Although mostly invisible beneath the water’s shimmering surface, the submerged town buildings were reduced to ruins over the years. In order to ensure the bell tower remained standing, the city hall of the neighboring town of Vilanova de Sau and the Catalonian Water Department joined efforts to reinforce the church building in 1999. The bell tower remains an important gauge of the water level and drought conditions for residents of the area.

On an unusually dry, warm April day, one of the last of our vacation, my sister and I eased down into the valley in our rented van with our kids and husbands. As we pulled into the reservoir parking lot, carved into a hill to accommodate kayakers and paddle boaters who frequent the site, I was shocked to see the shoreline many, many meters below I had seen it in the metro ad.

Several days after our visit, Spain would record its hottest temperature ever in the month of April, at 38.8°C.

The reservoir was at a shockingly low 6.67% capacity, compared to 61% at the same time last year and 75% at the same time 10 years ago.

The level had reduced so dramatically that building ruins, covered by water since before the valley was flooded, were now completely exposed.

As we walked among them, their haunting appearance felt like a warning of the ruin that climate change had in store for us.

Data source: elnacional.cat